This invention relates to powered wheelchairs for invalids.
Manually-driven wheelchairs, including collapsible chairs, for invalids, have been well-known for many years and electrically-driven chairs have also been produced. However, known electrically-driven chairs have the disadvantages of being expensive and being relatively heavy and difficult to handle when not in use. When small-sized electric motors are employed, difficulty may also be encountered in maintaining engagement between driving pulleys and driven inner surfaces of the relatively large ground wheels, and it is an object of the invention to minimise this difficulty.
It is another object of the present invention to minimise the above-mentioned difficulty of handling.
Yet a further difficulty encountered with power-assisted chairs having castor-type idler wheels, is that steering may be imprecise, and it is a further object of the invention to improve the degree of precision in steering.